“Oh,” said Roo. “Well, I know seven times four, and the capital of Spain, but I’m not telling you.”
On the first day of term, the four pupils of the Hundred Acre Wood Academy presented themselves right in the middle of the Hundred Acre Wood, where Eeyore was standing in front of a blackboard. He was wearing a mortarboard and a fine old gown with a scarlet hood and held a new piece of yellow chalk in one hoof and one of those things for rubbing out chalk in another. He welcomed the pupils by reading the register (which didn’t take long), then handed it solemnly to Pooh, who had been recruited as Prefect and given an armband that Kanga had made especially for him. It said PERFECT on it, and Pooh was so busy admiring it that he dropped the register.
Eeyore rolled his eyes, cleared his throat, and wrapped his gown closer around him. A couple of moths flew out.
“I am your headmaster,” he announced. “Now, do you all have your schoolbooks and pencils? Yes? Then I shall write on the board the school motto, and you are to copy it onto page one of your schoolbooks. The motto is—” The chalk scratched and squeaked as Eeyore wrote the word FLOREAT. “Owl, our Classics Master, will translate for us.”
Owl had not expected this, but said in a deep voice: “Floreat. Do not leave your hat on the floor.”
“We haven’t got hats,” said Tigger.
“There isn’t a floor,” said Piglet.
“I want a hat. Can I have a hat? Can it have ribbons on it?” cried Roo, getting more and more excited.
“Settle down everybody,” said Pooh the Perfect. “It’s time for assembly.”
“We’re assembled already,” Piglet pointed out.
“Then pay attention!” said Eeyore severely. “Now, in a lifetime in the Hundred Acre Wood, I have learned a few tips which I shall pass on to you. One: do not expect thistles always to be crisp and juicy. Sometimes they are crisp, and sometimes they are—”
At this point there was an audible Tiggerish whisper, “They are hot, hot, hot!”
“—juicy,” finished Eeyore, ignoring Tigger magnificently.
“Two: if there is a boggy patch and you have clean feet you will step into the boggy patch, as sure as eggs is eggs, or my name isn’t Eeyore. Three—” Eeyore seemed unsure for a moment. “Three: eggs is eggs. And four: my name certainly is Eeyore, and don’t you forget it. Now, off with the lot of you to class.”
And so the schooling began. The first lesson was Household Management, where Rabbit tried to explain a list of Things That Should Be Folded (napkins, tablecloths, sheets) as against Things That Really Should Not (hard-boiled eggs, cobwebs, desks).
Then they were all treated to Owl’s Latin class, where he declined amo, amas, amat for them several times, and told them that mus is the Latin for “mouse,” but became rather short-tempered when Pooh asked whether hus was the Latin for “house”and Piglet wanted to know if puss was the Latin for “cat.”71
Things were little better in Geography, where Kanga tried to explain that the Equator was an Imaginary Line that Ran All Around the World.
Piglet put his paw in the air.
“Please, Kanga, if the line is imaginary, how do we know it’s there?” he asked.
“Roo dear, don’t put your pencil up your nose,” said Kanga. “Now, Piglet, that’s just it. We don’t know the line is there.”
“In that case,” said Tigger, “why mention it?”
“Because if I didn’t mention it, you wouldn’t know about it!” responded Kanga rather briskly.
Roo said, “But you don’t know about it either.”
Kanga could be seen counting to ten under her breath.
“Of course I do, I’m your mother,” she informed Roo. “Now, children, it’s time for break!”
While the pupils were having their break, the teachers met to discuss why there wasn’t any discipline.
“It’s the stripy ones,” said Eeyore gloomily, shaking another moth out of his gown, which he had taken off because of the heat.
“It’s all of them,” said Rabbit, twitching his nose. “Really, I thought Roo would have been better brought up!”
Kanga gave him a warning look. “And what do you mean by that, Rabbit?”
Owl cleared his throat.
“The gravity of the situation means, suggests, connotes, imports, and portends—” he paused for a moment, looking rather as if he had forgotten what he was saying. “It means we need Christopher Robin!” he concluded, recovering splendidly.
But Lottie was having none of that.
“Nonsense!” she snorted. “He’s not due until after lunch. I can deal with this.”
After the break, Lottie taught Dancing and Deportment.
“I hear that you have not been living up to the high standards of the Academy,” she told the pupils as they stood in line in front of her.
“Sorry, Lottie,” they chorused together, with the exception of Tigger, who was trying to see if he could stick his tail into his ear.
“Pooh, as Prefect it is your duty to assist the teachers in Keeping Order,” the otter continued.
“Yes, Lottie,” agreed Pooh, trying to sound as clever as he could, and wondering if Keeping Order could mean putting your honey-pots in a very neat row and then staying at home to guard them.
“I am here to teach you good manners and grace,” said Lottie. “And we shall begin with the polka, a lively yet refined dance. Imagine, if you will, a grand ballroom filled with the crowned heads of Europe: dashing men in uniform and beautiful women in flowing silks.”
Here she placed a record carefully onto the gramophone, which she had borrowed from Christopher Robin.
“Are you all partnered? Piglet and Tigger, Pooh and Roo? Now, follow my lead—in time with the music! One, two, three, hop!—that’s it—one, two, three, hop!—no, Tigger, hop, not bounce—no, Tigger, no, no, NO!”
But it was too late. Tigger, holding Piglet in his paws, had bounced high up into the air. And when they came down again, it was on top of Lottie.
“You’re squishing me!” squeaked Piglet from in between Tigger and Lottie.
“One, two, three, hop,” continued Pooh as he polkaed past the pile, deep in concentration, not noticing that he had trodden on Roo’s feet three times and Tigger’s twice.
“Desist!” shouted Lottie as her head appeared from underneath Tigger’s tummy. With a twist of her powerful tail, she managed to extricate herself from the heap. She drew herself up to her full height in front of Pooh.
Pooh stopped short.
“Do you want me to—what was it—insist?” he asked nervously.
“Lunch!” Lottie cried. “Lunch, everybody!”
Pooh kept the pupils busy with sandwiches and the school song until the games master himself arrived.
At once, the staff of the Hundred Acre Wood Academy told him of their difficulties.
Christopher Robin listened gravely, and did not laugh, though perhaps the corner of his mouth twitched a little, once or twice.
“Well, Tigger always was more of an outdoor type,” was all he said.
After lunch, Christopher Robin took charge of the sports. First, he organized a High Jump. Piglet ran up to the bar ... and then ran under it. The High Jump was easily won by Tigger, who jumped not only over the bar but the posts as well.
“Well done, Tigger!” cried everybody, except Eeyore, who remarked, “It looked more like a bounce to me.”
Then it was time for the Long Jump. Piglet ran up to the sandpit, but instead of jumping made a fine sandcastle with a bucket that he had found lying about, the way buckets do. The Long Jump was won by Roo, who jumped right to the far end of the sandpit and beyond.
“Well jumped, Roo!” cried Kanga.
And after all that, when the animals were flushed and panting, Christopher Robin sat them all down, the pupils on one side and the teachers on the other, and asked them how they had likedschool.
There was a very long pause, and then everyone talked at once.
“An intere
sting experiment,” suggested Owl.
“Amo, a mouse, a mat, what kind of a language is that?” asked Piglet.
“All that folding and polishing,” grumbled Tigger. “Boring!”
“Dancing might be all right if Pooh looked where he’s going,” squeaked Roo.
“Why does a school have to have pupils anyway?” asked Lottie.
There was another pause.
“By the way, I can’t teach at all next week,” said Kanga. “It’s my spring cleaning, you know.”
“Mine too,” said Rabbit.
“That’s a shame,” said Christopher Robin. “What about everyone else?”
But suddenly it seemed that nobody at all was available anymore. Nor did anyone seem to mind.
Pooh had said nothing against school, because he was a Perfect. But a few days later, when they were having elevenses at his house, and Pooh was hoping Christopher Robin would hurry up so that they weren’t late for twelvses, he found himself saying: “I didn’t really want to go to school, you know.”
“Oh?” prompted Christopher Robin, buttering toast.
“It didn’t seem the right sort of thing to do on a sunny day. But ... but ...” He wanted to add something about being a Perfect, and not being one any longer and how school had been...well...
“I feel the same way myself sometimes,” said Christopher Robin carelessly. “By the way, though, the thing about being a Prefect is, you don’t stop being one when you’re not at school.”
“You don’t?” said Pooh, so interested that the pawful of honey stopped halfway to his mouth.
“So I was going to mention that you ought really to go on wearing your armband, at least on special occasions. Sort of like soldiers and medals.”
So Winnie-the-Pooh did just that. And he was not the only one. If you visited Eeyore when he wasn’t expecting you, you would sometimes find him in his gown and mortarboard, using the tassle to keep flies away, and the blackboard to practice his tap dancing.
And as for Lottie, she could not keep her mind on anything for very long, and when Piglet asked her a week or so later about the Academy, she answered: “Academy, darling? What do you mean?”
Otters are like that.
Chapter Eight
in which we are introduced to the game of cricket
CHRISTOPHER ROBIN had had a birthday. There had been cards with laughing kittens wishing him a happy day, and the usual presents: socks and gloves and writing paper and a fat book called 1001 Things to Do in the Holidays.
Christopher Robin had used the writing paper to write letters saying thank you for the socks and the gloves. He had not found this easy, thinking that a letter saying: would have done the job nicely, but it seemed that people wanted bits about the weather and where he had come in math, and I do hope you are well.
Dear Whoever,
Thank you for the socks/gloves.
Yours sincerely,
Christopher Robin
Having put the socks and gloves in the very back of the drawer, he turned to 1001 Things to Do in the Holidays. On page three it suggested clearing out the potting shed, and on page five it suggested putting toys in boxes with sticky labels on them, and on page seven it suggested: Why not make a list of all the people you most admire from your history books?
Christopher Robin did not know what it said on page nine, because after reading pages even he had closed the book and never opened it again.
But there had been one present that he had liked very much. This had been a cricket bat, a cricket ball, and two sets of stumps with bails that assembled into a wicket. There was also a pair of batting gloves, some shin pads, a pair of wicket-keeping gloves, a scoring book with pencils, a pencil sharpener, an eraser, a tin of linseed oil, and some squares of cotton for rubbing the oil into the bat. All of which fitted very neatly into a splendid sausage-shaped bag. Everything you needed to play cricket.
This time, when he wrote his thank-you letter, he had added pictures in coloured crayons, and his batting average for the past two summers, and signed the letter, Love from Christopher Robin. And he meant it too.
On this particular day—it may have been a Tuesday, because it often was—he brought the bag to a clearing in the Forest halfway between his house and Owl’s house and setup the stumps and the bails on a patch of ground which was not too bumpy. Then he went around the edge of the playing area with a bag of stones, laying them out to mark the boundary. It was not long before most of the others had gathered around, and Christopher Robin began to explain the rules. “Cricket is a game between two teams. Each team bats once—that’s called an innings—and tries to score as many runs as possible.
“The batter faces the bowler from the opposite team, who bowls the ball at him like this.” Christopher Robin turned his arm and opened his fingers as if he was letting a ball fly out of his hand. “If he hits the ball, the batter sprints towards where the bowler was standing, and back again. If he reaches the bowler, he scores a run, and if he gets back to where he started from he scores another. If the ball goes right outside the boundary without bouncing, he’s scored six runs. But if it bounces, then he only gets four.”
“That’s easy,” said Piglet. “You could just keep going backwards and forwards and getting loads of runs.”
“Ah, yes, but the other team is trying to stop you. If you miss the ball and it knocks over your stumps, you’re out. If you hit the ball and one of the fielders catches it before it bounces, then you’re out too. The same goes if the fielder throws the ball and hits the stumps while you are running. When all the first team is out, everyone changes places, and the batters become the bowlers and fielders.”
“Seems like a lot of running up and down,” said Eeyore, “for no very good purpose.”
“No, no,” said Christopher Robin, getting excited. “You see, it’s like this...”
So he told them more strange things, about having a Short Leg and a Silly Point, and Run Outs, and when a ball was a no-ball and things like that. And while the animals felt that this cricket business was not entirely sensible, they definitely started to get the idea that it was fun.
Over the next few days, from morning until night, while the bees buzzed contentedly around the hollow oak and the gentle whine of an airplane looping the loop above the Hundred Acre Wood throbbed in the scented air, it was cricket, cricket, and ever more cricket.
Finally, Kanga, who had relatives in Australia, proposed that a proper match should be arranged and that it should be a Test Match. Pooh asked what that was.
Christopher Robin said: “A Test Match is a very important game played between England and Australia. The winner gets the Ashes.”
“What ashes are those?” asked Rabbit.
“I’m not quite sure, Rabbit.”
“I’ve got the ashes of my Uncle Robert in a vase on my mantelpiece,” said Owl. “It blew over in the great gale and the vase broke, but I got a new vase and most of the ashes.”
“I think we should have a Test Match,” said Kanga. “Me and Roo can be Australia and the rest of you can be England.”
“There can’t be just the two of you,” said Christopher Robin, “that wouldn’t be fair at all.”
“We’re very good,”said Roo. “Really we are. Watch me,watchme!”Saying which, he swung the bat in the air and fell over backwards as he aimed it at the ball. “That was just a practice swing!” he explained, and tried again and fell over backwards again.
“If there were just the two of you, with one of you bowling and one of you keeping wicket, there would be nobody left to field,” said Christopher Robin. “I need to think about this.”
He went to sit on a large boulder, which was an excellent place to think because it was just the right height and did not interrupt. Eventually he climbed down, and announced, “We will have a Test Match, but we won’t be playing for the ashes of Owl’s Uncle Robert and it won’t be England against Australia. The match will be between the four-legged and the two-legged animals. It wi
ll be held on the day after tomorrow and will begin at eleven.”
“Cricket under the trees and having fun. Count me out,” grumbled Eeyore.
“But, Eeyore,” said Pooh. “We won’t be able to manage without you.”
Eeyore raised an eyebrow.
“These are theteams,”continued Christopher Robin. “The Four Legs: Pooh, Tigger, Rabbit, and Piglet.
The Two Legs: Kanga, Roo, and me. Owl is to be the umpire.”
“I will captain the Four Legs team,” said Rabbit immediately, while some of the others counted their legs.
Lottie cleared her throat. “Excuse me,” she said quietly.
“Oh, Lottie, I am sorry,”said Christopher Robin, but the truth of it was that he couldn’t remember whether Lottie had four legs or two, and it seemed rude to look.
“I know my legs are quite short,” Lottie continued, “but that is the way with otters. There are four of them and they have been much admired.”
“Of course, Lottie,” said Christopher Robin, “I was only hesitating because the Four Legs already outnumber the Two Legs.”
“Then I shall play for the Two Legs of course,” said Lottie.
After Christopher Robin had thought about it, and Rabbit had got tired of waiting and had gone to clear out the larder—there was never much in it because he liked it to be clean—and Pooh had had several smackerels of honey and Piglet had become quite pink with excitement thinking about the match and Tigger had had a swallow of the linseed oil and not cared for it at all, a team sheet was produced with the teams set out impressively like this:
Return to the Hundred Acre Wood Page 7